I have often seen people post something like, “I’m learning so much more homeschooling my kids than I EVER did in public school!”

While this is GREAT!  It doesn’t actually mean what they think it means. 

There is a valuable lesson here, and one that SHOULD NOT be missed!

When we’re educating our kiddos, we need to keep in mind the truth about how all kids learn best.

Audio version: www.DecodingLearningDifferences.com

Transcript:

This is Decoding Learning Differences with Kimberlynn Lavelle. And this episode is the teacher learns the most. This comes from something I see all the time on Facebook. So keep in mind, episode three was how children learn. And in that episode, which I've referenced back quite a few times, so make sure you watched it, listen to it, watching it a little bit better because of the visual.

Although there is also the download of this sheet. If you go to listen to it in the show notes, you can download this. So this is the learning pyramid and keep this in mind. When we are talking about how children really learn, they learn by participating in the learning and the number one way that children learn and retain really. This is the retention,

remembering what they been taught or they're learning: 90%. They remember 90% of what they have learned if they are the teacher. So sometimes I see parents say that, oh, I learned so much more homeschooling than I ever did in public school. Good. You're supposed to! Not because you're homeschooling, but because you're the teacher. So keep that in mind though.

And don't do that to your kids. in the Octopus's guide to reading comprehension, we talk about teacher time. This is one of the strategies that I give: have your child be a teacher. And if you download that, there is a link on one of the pages. There's a, there's this teacher time and you click on that view and it tells us we remember 90% of what we teach.

And if you go to the view, there's a video about just that strategy. So that's putting that into action. Oops. So your goal is to learn alongside your child, not to be their teacher because I'm constantly, like I said, I see people say, oh, I learned so much more now as a homeschooler than I did ever. I ever learned in public school.

Yeah, but the teachers in public school are also learning more as teachers than they did when they were students. Now the problem is, and a lot of teachers know this and are starting to change things around. The problem is that we weren't allowed to be teachers. So whether you're a public school teacher or a homeschooler or anything else, whatever children you are trying to educate,

please stop talking to them More than You allow them to teach you and encourage them to be the teacher, allow them to discover things for themselves and to teach you what they've discovered. They will learn it so much better. It's hard for us sometimes because we like know an answer and we just want to like tell it to them because it's faster, but it's not faster.

It takes out their discovery. And it means that they are going to spend longer trying to remember and learn what you're trying to teach them than if you just let them figure it out to begin with and not to the point of frustration. But I'm saying allow that discovery to happen and encourage it. So avoid the temptation to be the teacher. Oops, we do that a lot.

I do it all the time and I'm constantly having to stop myself because it is, it's very tempting to be like, oh, let me show you how to do that. Let me tell you what this is. Let me teach you. And it's fun. We like to be the teacher, but our kids like to be the teacher too. So keep that in mind.

Definitely foster discovery allow your children to figure things out and learn new things. Yes. Let them teach, let Them be the ones that are teaching you. So an example, if your child needs to learn subtraction with regrouping. So this is where something like 32 minus 27. So if you just were going to doing like the columns, you can't do two minus seven.

Now our temptation is to teach them a trick, to be able to know when to do it, avoid that temptation because all the cute little chants in the world, won't get your child to understand why that little chant or trick works. If they discover it. And then you want to teach them a little chante or a little trick, that's fine, but they need to discover why they can't do two minus that or seven minus two instead of two minus seven.

Like that's what, that's the most common mistake I see. They'll have 32 minus 27. And they'll say, well, seven minus two is five and three Minus two is one. So it's 15. 32 minus 27 is not 15, but it's easier. And they just mix things around because they aren't really understanding 32 as a number. And 27 as a number. they've split it up.

And anyways. so have them discover it by giving them little counters and figuring out. have them do it on a place value chart so that they have three tens and two ones and then two tens and seven ones. And let them figure out how do I like match these up? How do I put them together? Or don't even give them the 27 part,

just give them the 32 and say, okay now hand me 27 and they're going to somewhere in there, figure, oh, I have to trade things around to make this work. Let them figure it out. Remember, always go back to hands-on learning. Hands-on that's how our kids really learn. If we are skipping to show, let me show you the algorithm.

You are skipping The foundational understanding. It is faster In the short term, just like using Rewards and punishments is faster in the short term, but it doesn't give you the long-term results that you're really looking for. That's a whole separate issue. Okay? Another example is sight words. If you want your child to learn sight words, How do you do that?

Well, if they need to memorize Them, let them teach you the sight word or let them teach their little sister or the dog or the goldfish or their stuffed animal. It doesn't matter. Let them, let them teach someone. They can hold up flashcards. They can read and highlight. They can do all sorts of different activities that maybe you've done with them.

But then let them go do it with someone else. Let them go, teach someone else because when they start teaching, it is when they're really absorbing it. So it might be flashcards. It's not the best, but it is common and it'll work. I certainly use flashcards at times. So you've got flashcards, but after you've run through the flashcards with your kid,

hand them to the kid and have them go teach it to some, to the other animal and then be there so that they can look at you and be like, because even if they're looking for the answer from you, they're trying to teach it to someone else. So they're looking there. They're going to be remembering it so that they can teach It.

It gives them a reason to learn it. That's another part of this is having a reason to learn the material. Okay. Moving on another example, writing grammar That S at the end, Versus adding the ES at the end. When does it happen? Again, Allow for that discovery. Ask a question. Hey, Jimmy, why does this word having an S at the end.

And this has an ES? When it's dogs, we just add an S. But when it's dives now, there's that ES. Not a great example that I've thought off the top of my head, right? You're having that conversation. Why do you know, why is this happening instead of this? So you're seeing the question and then they have to come up with a reason why it would happen.

They're now looking for patterns so that they can explain to you why it would happen. If you tell them you use the S ending here because this. You use the ES ending here because this. this is the rule. They Don't have a reason to remember it. They don't care. You've taken all the curiosity or intrigue out of it. And they won't remember it Because they don't care or whatever.

Who cares, whether it has an S or an ES. Yes. But if you make it like a puzzle to figure out you're putting some intrigue into it, you're making it interesting. So again, just an example, which I was having a hard time off the top of my head. Okay. And this is a really good one to use. Can you tell me more? so as your child is trying to understand something and trying to figure something out and they're telling you to you ask them,

can you tell me more, get them to come up with more information, more ideas, more explanations, more examples. So your takeaway today, let your child teach so that they can learn. Yeah. Our children learn best when they are the teachers. So yes, while you might be learning a ton, allow your child to also learn a ton by also being a teacher.

And the bonus is that you get to learn too, because it is really fun. I love it. All right. Tell me your story. Just tell me what's going on. What have you learned? What are you learning? Kimberlynn@DecodingLearningDifferences.com. And I cannot wait to hear from you.